PRIJEDOR, Bosnia-Herzegovina
The remains of 30 Bosniaks killed by Serb forces in the Prijedor area of northwestern Bosnia in 1992 were buried Monday after their bodies were located in different mass graves, and identified.
"Today is a day that illustrates the traitorous and timid souls of the international tribunals and the UN Security Council, which have failed to condemn the massacre as a genocide," the head of the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Husein Kavazovic, told a crowded funeral ceremony held at the Vedro Polje stadium in Prijedor's Hambarine village.
A total of 5,209 Bosniaks and Croats including 4,093 civilians were killed during the 1992 Prijedor massacre, according to the country's Missing Persons Institute. Around 2000 victims have been located and identified so far in the nearly 100 mass graves in Prijedor and surrounding areas.
"There will be people who will continue to deny that a genocide was committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina [during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War], but they will not be able to hide it," Kavazovic said.
"Today. the only thing we see in their eyes is the anger they feel towards the victims and their families," he said.
The 30 victims - of whom the youngest and the oldest at the time of killing were 19-year-old Zikret Recic, and 71-year-old Meho Hocic - were buried in different cemeteries following the funeral prayer.
Monday's ceremony comes only nine days after another burial ceremony held for 136 recently discovered victims of the Srebrenica genocide.
Two decades ago in July, towards the end of Bosnia's 1992-95 war, Srebrenica, in the eastern part of the former Yugoslav country, witnessed the murder of at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys at the hands of Bosnian Serb paramilitaries.
Between April 1992 and December 1995, an estimated 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million were displaced. Up to 50,000 women, mostly Bosniak, were raped.
The Bosnian War was sparked by the break-up of Yugoslavia which led Bosnia to declare its independence in February 1992.
Its capital Sarajevo came under attack from Bosnian Serb militias, backed by the Yugoslav army, in what became the longest siege in modern history.
This past July 8, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling the 1995 Srebrenica massacre a genocide.
Four members of the council abstained, including China, while the remaining 10 voted in favor of the motion.
